If I am going to look at the issue of inheritance again, I would like to focus on how we inherit the way we read certain texts, especially texts like Mansfield Park. We are introduced to a family who, sadly, focuses much of their attention on marriage and the meaning of marriage based on how it can help to boost an individual’s status. Immediately, we are thrown into thinking that this is a horrible way to think and live; therefore, we are better than these characters because we possess the ability to say that this is wrong because of a specific reason. We inherit these ideas based on what we know about the time period and how unfortunate many of these young ladies were, because of their inability to communicate their feelings about being forced into a relationship with men they probably didn’t love. Even if the reader doesn’t know anything about the time period, they inherit what they think about Mansfield Park or Jane Austen from others opinions or feelings about her texts and/or characters in what he or she read. The most interesting aspect of this interpretation is that at one time it was based purely on our own world view. The existence and widespread use of theory serves to shape our discussion of the text. In this way, we are responsible not only for the view of the original text, but of its subsequent reinterpretation. This forces us to pay attention not only to the text but of the time and attitude of the eras in which it was recovered. In other words, the text itself is not responsible for the inheritance which we receive from it, but instead shape our own inheritance by virtue of our interpretations throughout history.
The most interesting aspect of this interpretation is that at one time it was based purely on our own world view. The existence and widespread use of theory serves to shape our discussion of the text. In this way, we are responsible not only for the view of the original text, but of its subsequent reinterpretation. This forces us to pay attention not only to the text but of the time and attitude of the eras in which it was recovered. In other words, the text itself is not responsible for the inheritance which we receive from it, but instead shape our own inheritance by virtue of our interpretations throughout history.